As the Chelsea Flower Show draws in this weekend, we look back at The Chrysanthemum Show of the Temple Gardens which occurred during the mid-1800s. It was seen as an occasion of acknowledged significance, not just for the Inn, but for London society at large.

At various points from 1853 to 1885, the Middle Temple Gardens were opened for a public display of  flflowers, namely Chrysanthemums. These were of such revere and success that in 1857, the Treasurer of the day, Master O’Malley, proposed at a meeting of Parliament that the gardener be given £5 ‘for the satisfaction of his chrysanthemums’.

The pompon chrysanthemums were a particularly popular feature of these shows and the Head Gardener, Joseph Dale, published a sixpenny manual on their cultivation ‘in or near large towns’, which suggested an arrangement of five rows of chrysanthemums in a twelve feet wide border with a row of pompon chrysanthemums in the front.

The show was also featured in the newspapers and magazines of the time. In 1880, The Daily News reported that “the head gardener has gathered a very creditable collection of about 400 plants, including many old-established favourites.” One Victorian magazine published a drawing named Sunday Blooms at the Temple featuring a short rhyming couplet “First to the Church, where the choir a nice anthem hums; then to the Gardens, to see the Chrysanthemums!”

However, sadly, The Middle Temple Garden Flower show eventually drew to an end when the Chrysanthemums Committee wrote to Parliament recommending that they abandon the show on the “grounds of economy, want of space, and the consequent additional labour involved.” While this decision was met with great sadness by the gardener who felt moved to write to Parliament expressing his dismay at this, it was passed and the last show occurred in 1885.